First Purse!

Though I have sewn a travel bag before, last year, I recently made myself a handbag for the first time. I enjoyed the construction of the bag, and everything went pretty smoothly until the final top stitching, which was a bit thick for my machine. I'm hoping to get some denim-weight needles to see if it's easier with those. Here are the results:

 I'm pretty pleased with my pattern-matching for the outer pocket, which you can see below:

For the inside of the purse, I chose a contrasting red patterned quilter's cotton. The inside has one zip pocket and two elastic pockets, perfectly sized for my cell phone and my wallet. The whole purse has a recessed zipper top, which I'm also quite proud of. So far, the only thing I'll do differently next time is choose an outer fabric that will hold up a bit better to repeated rubbing against my body--this outdoor canvas fabric is starting to fade in the darker areas. Ah, well. Live and learn!